With just about a week to go until Dance Marathon starts, we checked in with people preparing for the annual, 30-hour fundraiser. Find out how a dancer, a member of the food committee and the co-chairs themselves are getting ready for NU’s biggest philanthropic event.

Brittany Schaefer, dancer

While some first-year dancers are frantically scrounging up every dime they can find and trying to find extra hours to nap, McCormick sophomore Brittany Schaefer coolly looks forward to her first Dance Marathon. She and her partner have raised all of their money after contacting her relatives and canning in a negative-22 degree windchill.

She’s not concerned about classes, especially after having dropped Organic Chemistry. She says her work is luckily spread out so that most of her papers are due before DM and her finals are far enough after that she’ll have time to recover. Dropping a class also helped Schaefer on another front.

“I’ve been working out more since I dropped it,” she said. “So I guess that will help.”

Now it’s just a matter of getting enough sleep and planning her costumes. “Margaret [Schaefer’s DM partner] did it last year, so we learned that comfort is key to the costumes,” Schaefer said. “We’re trying to incorporate shorts as many times as we can.”

Schaefer frets about one preparation, though: reducing caffeine consumption. “I gave up soda for Lent, so that’s helping with the caffeine thing,” said Schaefer, an admitted Diet Coke addict. “But I replaced some of that with coffee, so we’ll see if I can get off that.”

By Jason Plautz

Tara Corrigan and Krysta Kauble, co-chairs

On the third floor of Norris, students lurk in the door frames of the Dance Marathon office, waiting to ask a question. DM officers squeeze past one another to look at flyers printed for upcoming events. Every desk is covered with paper, and yet everyone looks calm.

Communication seniors Tara Corrigan and Krysta Kauble sit in the center of this activity. Kauble is making fun of Corrigan and her tendency to not wear socks.

“She didn’t even wear socks for DM!” Kauble says. “Isn’t that weird? I don’t even know how she did that.”

Corrigan just shrugs. “I don’t like to wear socks.”

Although Corrigan and Kauble seem relaxed, their work is cut out for them. Together, they calculate the number of hours they currently dedicate to DM.

“We are putting in 60 hours a week right now,” Kauble says. “Our schoolwork suffers. We don’t really do homework or go to class anymore.”

The two are now coordinating speakers from the beneficiaries, confirming plans with student performance groups, and finalizing the production schedule for the Louis Room, where the main dance floor is, and Club DM, which some dancers will rotate through during the 30-hour event.

“Having two locations lends itself to some interesting logistics,” Kauble says. “Each committee is working extra hard to address these logistics. For instance, how do you feed people in two locations? What is the movement of the dances?”

Kauble and Corrigan are also finalizing lighting and music plans with Louis Room Productions. Despite the stress, the co-chairs say they are happy with DM’s progress.

“I don’t know if there has been a DM with the kind of dancer excitement and the kind of executive board that we have know,” Kauble says. “We look at the big picture and we could not be happier.”

“The event itself is the culmination of a year’s worth of work,” Corrigan says. “And we are so excited and enthusiastic about that weekend when DM will finally happen.”

By Melissa Tussing

Lindsey Barst, food committee co-chair

The DM food committee has worked since last April to make sure all of the dancers and workers are fed. That’s 750 dancers plus 130 committee members that have to stay full and happy.

This week, the committee has been contacting vendors to make sure they follow through with their pledges, and the co-chairs, Lindsey Barst and Adam Miller, have also been scheduling people to pick up food.

The 65-person committee will serve 10 snacks and three full meals during the event. They also make sure each participant remains hydrated. What’s best, though, is that they don’t have to pay for any of it, thanks to contributors such as Whole Foods, Jamba Juice, Argo Tea, Odwalla and Stony Creek Yogurt.

“100 percent of the food was donated,” Barst says. “We have not spent a cent on any of the food to be served.”

The food committee also raised $1,100 from a Top Chef competition in late January. It was judged by President Henry Bienen, ASG President Jon Webber and pastry chef Mary McMahon.

“It was above and beyond what we expected,” Barst says.

By Jenny An